“It sucks going from playing in front of a great fan base to a team with really no fan base at all,” is how Tommy Pham started his comments on the difference between playing for the St. Louis Cardinals and his new team, the Tampa Bay Rays. Pham was traded by the Cardinals on July 31 for a package of players highlighted by southpaw prospect Genesis Cabrera.
Pham had spent his entire four-plus year career in St. Louis, which has always been known as a baseball town, so the switch to a much less invested Tampa crowd was certainly a culture shock.